


Like My Mirror, Years Ago

by Rhymepod195



Series: AkuSai on Main [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: I probably got the treatment of burns completely wrong but IT’S FINE, Lea loses his temper and accidentally gets Isa hurt, M/M, it’s fine though he gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 21:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18881446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhymepod195/pseuds/Rhymepod195
Summary: Axel has never lost his temper as a Somebody before, Roxas and Xion are curious as to why.





	Like My Mirror, Years Ago

“Sa— I mean, Isa?”, Roxas spoke up as they looked over Twilight Town and to its constant sundown from up on the Clock Tower. It was just Isa, Roxas and Xion up there at the moment seeing as Lea had gone back down to get more ice cream. Roxas still wasn’t entirely used to calling Isa by that name yet, but he tried his best, so he more often than not these days caught himself from using the wrong name.

“Yes?”, Isa replied, looking over to Roxas when he said his name.

“I just noticed we’ve never seen Axel angry before since he became a Somebody again. Did he ever get angry at people before...?”, he asked, genuinely curious. For someone so fire-oriented Axel had never lost his temper before, at least not since becoming a Somebody. They’d seen him angry before when they had fought him, but since becoming a Somebody… Not a single time.

“Not so much anymore, but he had a temper to behold when we were your age. He’s mellowed out since, but he can still get angry, it just takes more for him to get to that point.”, he mused, thinking back to the many times he’s had to calm Lea down for threatening another kid for picking on him.

“Really? What did he get angry at?”, Xion spoke up this time, just as curious as Roxas was, tilting her head to see past Roxas better.

Isa hummed, thinking for a moment. “Others taking things that were his, feeling he was wronged or slighted, those sorts of things. After we became friends also people picking on me.”

Roxas couldn’t help but snort softly at that. “I can’t really imagine people picking on you.”

“I couldn’t always summon a claymore, you know.”, he couldn’t help but smile, looking back over the sunset. “To be fair, when we met we were… what? Six years old at the most? Lots of things changed since then.”

“Such as?”, Roxas asked this time, though both his and Xion’s eyes were on him.

“Other than becoming a Nobody and being possessed by Xehanort? He began dragging me along to his so-called ‘spectacular’ pranks. He would never admit it, but the reason we became so in-famous because we got caught nearly every time.”

“I heard that!”, Lea called out as he appeared with four more popsicles of sea salt ice cream, two in each hand, a pout on his face. “We didn’t get caught that often, besides we got out of it every time!”, he held out his hands so that everyone could take a popsicle.

“Keep telling yourself that. But I distinctly remember getting grounded a lot because of your pranks-gone-wrong.”, he mused as he took his ice cream, barely biting back a smirk at the offended squawk Lea gave at his response. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he loved how responsive and expressive Lea was with everything, and he especially would never tell Lea that since it would probably inflate his already big ego even more.

(He didn’t know that Lea already knew he loved it, and would really put on a show just to get him to smile.)

 

~~~~

 

It had been weeks since that conversation, and Xion had gotten a cold. She had been getting back to where the keyblade wielders (and friends) had been staying after defeating Xehanort when a freak storm system came over town, and by the time she had gotten home she was completely drenched. So, she had gotten a cold, and Roxas had dragged Lea and Isa into town to go get some medicine for her.

 

They had been so preoccupied that they hadn’t realised it was a Heartless at first. They thought fireworks perhaps, but it was far too early in the day for fireworks, and there weren’t even any celebrations at first. Only when they heard the screams did they run around the corner,  and once they saw it did they realise what they had on their hands. 

 

Isa put the medicine they had bought into his backpack before summoning his claymore, the other two already on the Heartless with their keyblades (though he had long since noted that Lea loved switching back and forth between his Chakrams and Keyblade). He kept low and away from the heavy-hitting swings of the Heartless, too encumbered by his Claymore to be much use zipping about the sky - besides, since he was no longer bound to Xehanort he could no longer simply fly. 

 

He heard Lea call out for him, so he briefly glanced up towards him, and that was what proved to be a mistake. The next thing he knew was that the ground was no longer beneath his feet, a sharp pain at the back of his head, and then there was darkness.

 

“ISA!”, he had meant to warn him of the strike coming up on his blindside, but instead he was struck and thrown into a column of a building, and he saw Isa slide down the column and slump on the ground, not getting back up.

He wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be, he knew he was alive, but the sight made his blood run cold. He darted down towards Isa, evading the Heartless as he got to Isa as quickly as he could, trying to shake him awake. “Come on, wake up, this isn’t the time to sleep!”, he urged him, shaking his shoulder, but he wasn’t waking up.

 

He had a temper that was hard to trigger these days. But Isa? Isa was the one person you should  _ never _ hurt now that they were Somebodies again without picking a god to pray to. And this particular Heartless was now squarely on top of his shitlist.

 

“Isa!”, Roxas got down to where Isa was still unconscious, looking him over. “I can heal him, I- .. Axel?”, he looked up at the redhead, surprised he was so quiet.

There were flames flickering off his skin, and his eyes were aflame as well. His knuckles were white he was clutching his chakrams so tightly, jaw clenching and eyebrows furrowed. “Stay with him.”, the tone in his voice had no room for argument, and it was darker than Roxas had ever heard it before, darker than it was even when they had fought back in the castle. This was a whole new level of rage that he had never witnessed in him.

 

The fight was brutal, a flurry of flames, more than he had ever seen Lea use in all the time they had known each other, and the rage radiating off of Lea was  _ palpable _ . Roxas was not interested in getting between that and the Heartless, so instead he focussed on healing and waking up Isa.

Isa eventually sat up, groaning as he rubbed the back of his head, shaking his head to get his vision back into clarity. “What happened? Where is Lea?”, he asked, surprised to see Roxas but not Lea.

“The heartless threw you against this pillar, you got knocked out. Axel is um…”, he bit the inside of his cheek, squinting one eye when a large flash of orange and red blinded him from the side, looking to where Lea now stood, wreathed in red flames and breathing heavily.

“Oh, no…”, Isa mumbled, quick to get his feet no matter how shaky they were at the moment. “Don’t go near him right now, he’s just as likely to burn you as he was that Heartless.”, Isa warned Roxas who moved to go with him, though his words immediately made him halt, confused why Lea, his friend, would hurt him.

 

“Lea. Look at me, Lea, I’m alright.”, his voice stayed even as he stepped in front of Axel, unsurprised to see flame still wreathing them and reminding him of his own berserk mode. “Lea, listen to my voice. The fight is over, you can stop.”, he used his own flames to reduce the sting, but it still hurt as he cupped Lea’s cheeks, skin literally aflame. “It’s over, I’m safe. Do you hear me? I need you to come back to me.”, he ignored the searing pain, the way is muscles screamed to get away from the heat, from the literal flames blistering his skin at the moment.

“You got hurt—“, Lea said, his flames slowly dying down as Isa’s words got through to him, one hand reaching up to hold onto Isa’s arm, which actually caused him to hiss this time in pain, knees almost giving out at the sudden new pain. That got Lea’s attention, and he glanced at his hand.  _ Fire. _ The flames immediately disappeared and his chakrams did too as he realised what he had just done.  _ He hurt Isa. _

 

“Isa…”, his voice was barely a whisper, eyes wide and beginning to fill with tears. “I’m so sorry.”, words weren’t enough to express his regret, the fact that he had hurt the man he loved hurt beyond words, afraid to touch him again, hands and shoulders trembling.

“I’m fine.”, a lie, his hands were burnt raw and skin already beginning to blister where he had come into contact with Lea’s flames. “We should get going.”, he said, a shaky breath escaping him, trying so hard to ignore the pain, keep his mind clear and legs underneath him, as not to fall from the pain of the burns. 

“It’s not fine, I  _ hurt _ you!”, Lea objected, unsure how to even begin to process what he bad done. What he did know, though, is that they needed to get home.

“I can help, I can heal him.”, Roxas said, coming over, glad to see that Lea was (largely) back to normal, though seeing him this distressed wasn’t exactly back to normal though. “If we get back home, I can heal him. Axel, please.”, he tugged on Lea’s sleeve, trying to get them moving already. Isa wasn’t looking great, skin on his hands red and blistered, and where Alex had burned through his jacket wasn’t any better off. 

They got back home at record speed, and not even halfway there Isa’s legs gave out, causing Lea to carry him, continuously whispering apologies to him for hurting him, for not keeping himself in check, for allowing himself to do this to him.

Once inside Sora had hurried over as soon as he saw the condition Isa was in, helping Roxas heal him. The burns were extensive on his hands and arm, and even with healing magic it would have to do some of its own healing. 

 

So, that was how Isa ended up in bed, sighing as he looked at his bandaged hands, the skin below still raw and red with some minor blisters. The worst of it was healed, but it would be a while before he was back in another fight. He couldn’t even hold a book like this, nevermind lift his Claymore, not with two burnt hands and a burn on his right bicep.

“Isa?”, Lea poked his head inside, though clearly hesitant to come inside the room, not until Isa waved him over. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise…”, he couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t realise he had hurt him, that his fire had encased him so completely.

“Hey, it’s alright. I’m still alive.”, Isa said, reaching out to cup Lea’s cheeks, ignoring the stinging pressure of irritated skin and blisters.

“It’s not fine! I hurt you, and I didn’t even realise it!”, he shouted, pulling away, tears once again falling down his cheeks, shoulders beginning to tremble. “ _ I _ hurt you. Not someone else, not some heartless, or Xemnas, or Xehanort. It was  _ me. _ I hurt you when I promised I’d keep you safe!”, his voice broke, a near-sob choking out from his throat, the amount of tears rolling down his cheeks only increasing.

It broke Isa’s heart to see Lea like this, to blame himself for his outburst and see himself as irredeemable for hurting the man he loved. “Lea…”, he sighed, closing his eyes for a few moments before pulling Lea into a hug. It hurt, just a touch, but he wanted this right now. “So what if you hurt my hands a little, you protected me that’s what matters. You protected me when I couldn’t do so myself, and you carried me when I couldn’t walk anymore.”

“But…”

“No buts. Wounds heal, we both know that, now look at me.”, he leaned back so that Lea looked at him, cupping his jaw so that he couldn’t look away. “I love you. I  _ love _ you, regardless of what happens. Do you understand? I love  _ you. _ ”

A sob escaped Lea, pouncing on Isa for another hug, burying his face in his shoulder, arms tightly wrapped around his middle. “I love you too. I love you so,  _ so _ , much- I thought you wouldn’t anymore, not after what I did-“, he sobbed, shoulders shaking as Isa held him, gently shushing him, ever so subtly rocking from side to side.

“Nothing would ever be enough for me to stop loving you. You know that.”, he made sure to reassure Lea that he wasn’t angry with Lea, that he could never  _ really _ be angry with him. Not after all this time.

 

Lea refused to leave Isa’s side for as long as he was healing up. The occasional treatment with healing magic helped the process, but the bulk of it had to be done with Isa’s body’s own healing. 

He had needed help with just about everything. Opening doors, changing clothes, even opening the heavier variety of doors, anything that required for him to lift or handle things heavier than a pen required some sort of assistance. He wasn’t happy being as helpless as he was during the healing process, to be so dependent on Lea and the others to help him with things he could normally do completely on his own.

 

~~~~

 

“Lea, I am not completely helpless.”, Isa complained as Lea shampooed his hair, arms crossing as he leaned back against Lea’s chest inside the tub.

“I know, I know, but you can’t deny that you like being pampered.”, Lea sounded very smug from where Isa sat, which was right in front of him, and he rolled his eyes at it.

“I don’t even have to wear the bandages anymore. I can shampoo my own hair.”

“But that didn’t answer my question~”

Isa sighed, but let Lea have his fun with his hair, but kept him from trying to turn his shampoo-laden hair into a white-blue mohawk. 

 

He  _ did _ enjoy being pampered by his boyfriend, but it was everything else that annoyed him, that even the simplest things were made hard for him by the stinging pain of healing skin on his hands and arm. But, he was on the mend, after all he could at least lift things heavier than a pen now, and he could go without the bandages. He just had to make sure to keep them squeaky clean.

However, he doubted Xion would ever let him live it down that they went to town to get medicine for her and he ended up on the mend for much longer than she did with her cold.


End file.
